


Fables of the Reconstruction

by Sab



Series: Post-"Amor Fati" [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: (Uploaded by Punk), Episode s07e02: Amor Fati, Gen, Internal Monologue, Mulder Doesn't Hear Voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-11-16
Updated: 1999-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:05:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sab/pseuds/Sab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm remembering this now and even the damn Yankees don't deserve me. (Uploaded by Punk, from you guys are just fucked.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fables of the Reconstruction

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for Kelly Keil too, because she puts up with me. ;) And for Aurora, because she has no choice in the matter. :)

It's not about solid food, or IVs.

It's not about the bandage, itchy, pulling hair.

It's not even about the perfect four-game series, or the way my house smells, like the wet dog I don't own, like food gone bad, or about the fact that my fish are blessedly and totally illogically still alive, swimming in their stupid circles, corner/corner/corner/corner, and around and around and around and around...

It's not even about me, swimming these stupid circles. 

I know nothing stays the same, but if you're willing to play the game, it should be coming around again.

Said Carly Simon, who I've had a mad crush on since I was in high school. On _whom_ I've had a mad crush. They'd say.

True, though. Though I really don't recall anyone asking if I was willing to play the game. 

Hey, yeah! They never did ask. "They." Whoever "they" is. I certainly used to know. They were the ones who said nothing lasts forever. They were four out of five dentists, choosing Crest. They were the ones who misheard "play it again, Sam" and "methinks the lady doth protest too much."

Which, by the way, I do. Shit, I gotta sit down. They are almost always wrong.

I'm torn between the search for delicious in the nasty smell of home and this overwhelming stink of guilt. Guilt for what I've been given that I sure as hell don't deserve, and guilt for the dry flake of hangnail Scully dragged gently across my lip. It didn't hurt. It hurts now.

I gotta sit down. Qualify. Quantify. If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does he have?

Yeah, it's a trick question. I gotta sit down. I gotta trace this maze, backtrack, figure out where I crossed the line and cheated and somehow got out anyway. 

Scully, you didn't say what I wanted you to say. What happened to telepathy? Or did you hear me, and just not respond because you were afraid you'd break my heart? Or yours? Dumb little organs, hearts. Small as a fist, but they pack a hell of a lot more punch, the bastards.

Sitting. Hi, fish. Stupid swimming things. Around and around and around and around...

I'm such a lying asshole. Oh, Scully. I've never seen you more scared than you were today, how stupid is that? Not when Melissa died, not when you were diagnosed, not even when you shot me. My god, Scully, listen to me. Did you hear how I phrased that, how I thought that? Four out of five dentists agree, he's clinically narcissistic. 

But somehow this, this thing between us, this thing about me and about the truth and about what you think you know, and about what I know you know scared you beyond shitless. How the hell did this get so important to you? And how did I miss it happening?

I spend weeks comatose dreaming about god knows what Levittown fantasy world with god knows what suburban wish-fulfillment, and even in my dreams I get fucked. Literally and figuratively. God knows. I know too. Whose son does that make me?

I spend weeks comatose, and I've got the balls to think you come over here and I can comfort you. Jesus Christ. There is nothing new under the sun.

But this is new. The dry drag of your thumb against my lip, your heavy eyes like there's something I'm blessed with that I can share with you, like it's contagious, it's chicken pox and you want to stay home from school too.

You think I'm some sort of saviour, Scully, and me and my ego couldn't bear to break the news; I'm just some guy who has no idea where he's been these last few weeks; I'm just some guy who remembers nothing but the wet itch of your salty tear on my cheek and waking up sterile on sterile, splayed like some Christ parody, and you know what my first thought was? I'm serious, though I'd never tell you.

It was, "where's Diana?"

I felt like I'd missed a carpool, like I'd forgotten something at the grocery store, like I'd had an affair and she was waiting at home in the dark to beat me with a wooden spoon. I wanted to apologize; she'd always been so good to me. Bull-fucking-shit.

But there was always you. I'm a lying asshole; I'm a cheating asshole.

I can never come clean about this; I will never come clean. I'll never tell you that even in my occipital parietal marital bliss I shut you out because I couldn't take what it was you had to tell me, and I fled like the others of my ilk into La-La Land. You're better than I am; you always were. More noble, more worthy.

Brilliant and stunning you stand there a whole head shorter than I am and you're the bigger person, always. 

So the question here, the sixty-four thousand dollar question, Scully, is why not you? Why do I get all the supposed enlightenment, when obviously I don't know how to help you through this murk? Why not you, Scully, with all the power you can muster? I don't deserve enlightenment, hell, I can't even remember it.

(I can, by the way. Remember it all. But I will never, ever, ever tell you. Let's repress. Let's regress. Let's retreat.)

Have we fixed this, Scully? Have we plateaued? Because I don't know if I can handle this again, looking at you like that, seeing your terror and your desire and your...what was it? Jealousy? Really?

I'm remembering this now and even the damn Yankees don't deserve me.

I'm stuck with this, and you're all I've got; you're all I've ever had. The world is too much with me; I cannot hold thee close enough. I'm mixing my poetry references, now.

We are rebuilding; we are reconstructing; we are starting from the ground up, your hand in mine. We have no choice. 

My fish hate me. 

My house stinks.

I can't even wear this hat anymore.

Why did you leave so quickly, Scully? Was it because you knew I couldn't live up to your expectations? Because I'll never be able to, you know.

Jesus, Scully! My head hurts. I'm craving solid food, a thick steak, something expensive, something flamboyant, something unnecessary, something ridiculous, something that will treat my body the way it's treated me, something fattening, something poisonous, something bitter, something awful, something deadly.

You looked at me with such...something. How did I look at you? With condescention? With desire? With the carnal cravings of a man who's been prostrate for weeks and wants to know he's still got it? Wants to believe he ever had it? Wants to know what "it" is? Do "they" know?

It went by so fast, you at the door, in the doorway, needing me. Diana's dead. I still don't believe that, though I know it's going to hit me and the tears are going to come and the pain is going to come swelling back for her alone with that wooden spoon...and me with you.

Me with you, Scully.

Here's the sad part (he thought, watching his fish in their stupid circles): I'm going to forget that. I'm going to forget that the truth is out, not out there, but _out_ , out in the open; I'm going to forget that at that moment, that too-quick moment with you in my arms, all hands and tears and bodies touching bodies, I thought, why not you?

Why _not_ you?

I'm going to forget. My head hurts. I'm going to forget.

Promise me you won't.


End file.
